Sports

Corruption in football

Shocked, shocked

WITH an estimated $2 billion a week being wagered in Asia alone on football, the notion that match-fixing in the sport was a small, contained problem always strained the imagination. But the scale of the allegations in a report issued on February 4th by Europol, the pan-European police agency closely aligned with Interpol, still managed to stun most observers. The investigators identified a whopping 680 matches in 30 countries as potentially suspicious, including 380 in Europe from 2008-11. Some of them involved the sport’s most prestigious competitions, including the English Premier League (EPL), the pan-European Champions League and international tournaments.

The sport’s authorities have tried to depict the findings as old hat. Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, football’s international governing body, said on February 7th that “most of the matches…have already been analysed, dealt with and even were at court”. Indeed, Europol reported that 50 of the over 400 people suspected of involvement have already been arrested.

To close observers of corruption in the sport, however—most notably Declan Hill, the author of a book on football and organised crime—Mr Blatter’s effort to downplay the announcement looked like a whitewash. Thanks to tips resulting from a dispute among the leaders of an international criminal syndicate, the identity of the world’s alleged premier match-fixer is widely known. His name is Tan Seet Eng, he is usually called “Dan Tan”, and he lives in Singapore. According to Europol, Mr Tan’s group is suspected in the manipulation of hundreds of matches—both to influence final outcomes and smaller events such as the awarding of red and yellow cards—and is said to have paid bribes of up to $135,000 to players and officials.

Interpol has duly issued a warrant for Mr Tan’s arrest. But so far, Singapore has proved reluctant to surrender him. Like FIFA, its government has sought to play down the story, perhaps afraid that the scandal might affect its squeaky-clean reputation. While television programmes and newspapers in Europe have been leading on it, the Singaporean state media have buried it on the inside pages. The island state’s authorities have said only that they are “assisting the Italian authorities through Interpol in their investigations into an international match-fixing syndicate that purportedly involves a Singaporean, Dan Tan Seet Eng, and have provided information requested by the National Central Bureau Rome”.

Apologists for Singapore’s inaction argue that it cannot bundle off Mr Tan because it does not have extradition treaties with the countries that want him. It does have one with Germany, however, and the German Organised Crime Task Force has put in a bid for his extradition. Another technical hurdle is the legal requirement that the Singaporean justice system recognise the allegations against Mr Tan as constituting a crime locally. So far, he has not been arrested or charged there, despite the damning evidence against him—his former associate has provided detailed accounts of its operation to Italian investigators. Singapore insists it “takes a strong stance against match-fixing, and is committed to working with international enforcement agencies to bring down transnational criminal syndicates, including those that involve the acts of Singaporeans overseas”. But such efforts have not yet led to action against Mr Tan.

As long as Mr Tan continues to roam free, efforts to clean up football will probably be for nought. But even if he is eventually convicted, Mr Hill says there are 15-20 other fixers. And more will surely arise to take his place unless leagues institute much stricter measures to protect their integrity.

So far, the powers in European football have responded by burying their heads in the sand. Reinhard Rauball, the president of the German football league, insists that the sport in his country is “not affected”. Most of the Italian clubs charged with match-fixing in 2011 faced minimal point deductions and nominal fines.

The only way to clean up the game is by modifying the incentives that encourage corruption. To maximise the likelihood of catching wrongdoers, the capacity of betting monitors like Sportradar needs to be expanded, in order to detect patterns of numerous small bets placed at a host of different bookmakers. Forensic statistical research has been a fruitful source of leads in other sports. FIFA could also pay for anti-match-fixing detective units in the countries where such activity is most prevalent.

To deter players and officials from taking the risk, anyone found to have taken a bribe should be automatically banned for life from participation in any FIFA member confederation. In the case of corrupt players, their teams should also face a one-year suspension from play—nothing encourages self-policing like collective punishment. Finally, the paltry salaries in lower-ranked leagues make the lure of a windfall bribe payment irresistible. Rooting out corruption at all levels of football would probably require some revenue-sharing mechanism, so that all teams can pay their workers a wage comfortable enough for them to just say no to match-fixers.

"Some of them involved the sport’s most prestigious competitions, including the English Premier League (EPL), the pan-European Champions League and international tournaments."

I haven't seen any rumours about games actually involving the Premiership. A big deal was made of the CL game involving Liverpool but there have been no suggestions that they were aware of what was going on, and no other PL team has been implicated so far.